Specificity of Memory

This morning, perhaps in light of yesterday's wedding anniversary and the significance humans place on particular events, I was thinking about the specificity of memory. Some memories are simply more prominent than others, but my brain is chock-a-block with them - peculiar, trivial, momentous. Three examples came to mind:

My mom and I watching The Good Earth while eating oranges. My haphazard brain lighted on this gem yesterday and, morbidly enough, I thought that when my mom dies - some day about 40 years from now, knock on wood - I will put an orange and Buck's classic in the casket with her. She will need snacks and reading material for her journey. That one-off event is so particular to me, like a nexus of privacy that she and I shared. I do not know how old I was - perhaps 7-10 years old, in Nappanee - and I do not know why we ate oranges. I do not know why I got to stay up past my bedtime, and I do not remember where my brother or father were. But she remembers it too.

Riding in Jeff S.'s car with Becky P. and Jenny M. on our way to see the Notre Dame production of Julius Caesar in what must have been my junior year (16 or 17). I was still getting used to the fact I was no longer an outcast among my peers (junior high was rough), but I listened to country music as a deliberate means of creating a unique misfit identity for myself. Open peer acceptance was a fresh concept. Jeff played "Alive" by Pearl Jam. It was spring. The windows were open. The other three kids were singing along. I knew the melody but not the words, and I actively remember thinking: "this is being young."

Braiding Juliette's hair just now, I sang along to "Driftwood" by The Bluetones, an obscure track from an obscure Britpop band (at least to Americans). I thought of all the songs - thousands, literally - that I store stuffed in my head, and I wondered at the curious blankness of Juliette's mind. She has melodies in her head, for certain, because of her ability to identify Mozart is a little peculiar, but she has no songs or memories attached to those songs. I wonder what private, obscure moments she will wed to particular tunes in instances far too numerous and mundane to relate - but integral to the person she will become. How exciting is that??

I covered a lot of territory in the space of relating those three memories, from youth to death. They have that capacity, not for sentimental anniversaries.

On that note, this poem is called "Stranger Ride" and relates a particular remembrance in its most idealized form. I was married and in grad school when this moment took place some six years ago and, unlike with most memories, I memorialized it as the last poem I have written to date.

Our knees pressed together on a bus to the downtown.
The steady, solid weight of his leg against mine.
He has to notice
That tension.

He would move if he wanted -
With just enough space to shift to the right -
To pull away
And replace the wall that is
Not touching.

I cannot turn to see his face.
I glimpse what I can, as my eyes strain
And my face remains forward.
To look would acknowledge him
And me
And break the spell.

He seems shy, and that makes it better.
He doesn't do this everyday.
His hair is mussed
And his smell is plain and clean.
His shoulders hunched over a monograph.

But he has to notice and like it -
The furling, coiling heat of
Prolonged
Intentional
Physical contact
With an unknown human body.
My imagination flies around the confines of the bus
And rouses every nerve.

This will not happen again -
Not the steady, warm awareness of a stranger
Over several miles.

Our intimacy renders subways cold
Where stops and starts create
Erotic accidents that we ignore.
Shoulders press at high speed.
A hand brushes a thigh, struggling for balance -
Then apologies and embarrassment follow
Like guilty trespassers -
Like the fumbling plainness that scars a day.

But he and I will trespass without regret:
Our knees pressed together on a bus to the downtown.

Carrie Lofty
June 2001

"Crystal" by New Order is on now, and I am running to dance with Keven in the rain at Jess & Jeff's wedding, five months pregnant with Juliette and wearing a lavender gown that was almost too tight around my middle. Later that night, we would go with Richard to Taco Bell, still dressed in our formalwear...